Santa Cruz

Good Morning Everyone!

I’m sorry, but we are terrible!!! Look at that, the subject of this e-mail/post is “One Week Away From Second Event” and we haven’t sent you anything about the first one yet! Wow. Sorry about that. Let us tell you about what’s going on… it’s been exciting!

BUSY, BUSY & BUSIER!

Last year when I (Jason) was in the states sharing about what we have wanted to do here in Santa Cruz, we knew that it would be a lot of work. Still, as is usual, we underestimated how MUCH work was really in store for us. We were finally able to get started putting the roof on the place in early December. The idea was to finish in a month, do most of the electricity work and decoration in a few days and we truly thought that we would be able to start by early February. We decided to be careful with pushing it too hard, and after checking dates, we decided that the next best date would be March 7th. So we put that down on the calendar as our official start date. Needless to say, even that was too soon. We ended up having to postpone the first service (evangelistic event) until April 11th. Even then we worked day and night, 7 days a week, for over a month just to be ready for it.  We ended up having to ask my Father-in-law to return from La Paz to help us put tile over the cement floor.  That took almost a month.  While they were doing that we worked for close to a month on setting up the electricity in the place with the light and socket systems, stage lights, outside lights, etc.  Norah made the curtains while we worked on making a home made, collapsible 13 foot wide projector screen, putting the sound system together, and about 2,000 other things…  Needless to say, we lost contact with a lot of people during that time.  Even mom wrote me asking “Where are you?  Are you Ok?”.  That tends to happen when we get busy.  Sorry!

OUR TEAM AND GETTING PEOPLE TO COME TO THE FIRST EVENT

We were a little worried about what was going to happen in our first service, because our main team here in Santa Cruz had dwindled over the few months heading up to it.  Basically we found out who REALLY was with us and who wasn’t.  We ended up having maybe 20 or so people who were dedicated to what God has called us to do.  We did several things to try to get new people to come to the event.  Beginning in early march, we (the team) each began praying for 10 non christian friends that we were going to invite to the event.  During the entire month leading up to the event we prayed for these people daily, and we also fasted for that cause.  We also printed out 3000 fliers to pass out to those who we had been praying for, to those who live closest to the church, and to the areas surrounding several of our small groups.  On Saturday, April 10th, 29 youth arrived from the Sucre church to help us out as well.  They went out to several places around the city during both days to do street dramas and hand out fliers for the event.  In addition we set up two different busses from opposite sides of the city to bring groups of people before and take them home after the service.

HOW DID IT GO?  GOD DID AMAZING THINGS ON APRIL 11TH!

After months of hard work, lot’s of prayer and fasting, and putting our faith in God, HE opened up heaven’s gates that evening.  Our goal was to have a minimum of 100 people for this first event.  We ended passing that goal by 50.  That evening 150 people attended the event.  We showed a video about God’s Love at the beginning of the service, the worship team from Sucre played and led several songs, there was a drama, I (Jason) sang a special and then entered directly into the salvation message, which lasted about 20 minutes. We prayed with the people, took an offering and finished.  We gave awayfree ice cream before and after the service which was just was wonderful for two reasons.  First, the people actually got there on time, and then they stayed afterwards so that we could talk to them and get to know a little bit about them.  We were able to get the information (phone numbers & addresses) of around 100 new people.

AFTERWARDS & PREPARATION FOR SECOND SERVICE

Our goal all along has been to have several LARGE once-a-month services, and when we have a large enough team to be able to do the same thing weekly we’ll move to weekly services.  In the meantime we will be working in small groups throughout the month, working individually with the people and also preparing for the upcoming event.

A week after the first event we invited everyone back for a meal  at the church.  The goal was to share with everyone, try to get to know them even better, and eventually include them in one of our small groups.  That meal went very well.  During the past few weeks we have also been practicing music with some who attended our first service.  I announced during that service that if anyone knew how to play an instrument, to let me know.  Eight people came to talk to me after the service!  For this upcoming service wewill be doing almost everything ourselves.  The church from Sucre will not be coming, with the exception of Joel Cuellar, who will come to lead the song service.  We will playing all of the instruments with those who talked to me!  Also we have raised up a chorus and a choreography team from our own group of people… plus a group of young people from our team will be presenting the “Everything” drama for the next service!  (See it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyheJ480LYA.)

CONCLUSION… THE EVENT IS ON MAY 9TH… PRAY FOR US!

Our second event is this coming Sunday evening, May 9th.  We will be having a work day on Saturday, then we will go out to the neighborhood around our church that evening to invite everyone.  On Sunday morning we will all split up into two groups and go to two different sectors of the city to invite people, and we will be bringing busses from those areas in the afternoon.  Our goal for this upcoming service it to have 200 there!

We ask that you continue to pray for us and all that God is doing.  Please know that all of the sacrifices that YOU have made financially are bearing fruits.  Thank you for that, and we ask that you continue to be a part of the great things that God is doing and will do here during the next several months & years.  We still have SO many financial needs here.  In an upcoming letter I will spell those out for you.  So please continue to be faithful in your giving!  If you don’t currently support us… PLEASE DO!  Trust me, this is going towards something that is leaving its mark on this world for Christ.  You can get more information on supporting us on our website http://www.hohnet.com.  If you have any questions, please feel free to write us!

Below I’m including several photos from the event.  You can also see the entire photo album here… http://www.hohnet.com/photos/inauguracion-mcc-santa-cruz/.  Thanks again for everything and have a great week!  God Bless,